A New Map of Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton Island: With the Adjacent Parts of New England and Canada, Composed from a Great Number of Actual Surveys; and Other Materials Regulated by Many New Astronomical Observations of the Longitude as Well as Latitude; by Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to the King.

A New Map of Nova Scotia, and Cape Breton Island: With the Adjacent Parts of New England and Canada, Composed from a Great Number of Actual Surveys; and Other Materials Regulated by Many New Astronomical Observations of the Longitude as Well as Latitude; by Thomas Jefferys, Geographer to the King.

Description

Thomas Jefferys (1710-71) was a royal geographer to King George III and a London publisher of maps. He is well known for his maps of North America, produced to meet commercial demand, but also to support British territorial claims against the French. The period from 1748-63 saw fierce global competition between England and France, culminating in the Seven Years' War, which produced a high demand for maps of the contested territories. This map presents Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island in the wake of the “great upheaval,” when the British forcibly removed more than 7,000 French Acadians from their farms and homes along the coast of the Bay of Fundy. Following the war, Jefferys attempted to exploit the market for detailed survey maps of the colonial English counties, but the expenses involved threw him into bankruptcy in 1766. He went into partnership with publisher Robert Sayer to salvage his work, and after Jefferys’ death, Sayer forged a new partnership with John Bennett and used Jefferys’ plates to publish The American Atlas, in which this map appeared.